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Thursday, March 28, 2013

Inspiration from Joel Salatin: Part 3 - Ethical Food Production

Today it takes up to 10 calories of oil to produce one calorie
of food. Joel Salatin from the US, heralded as the worlds most successful
farmer, was in Sydney recently where he gave an illuminating talk. By
uncovering the inefficiencies of our chemical food system he offers us a better
way to treat the land and ourselves. Inspired, I consider how these ideas can
be applied on the household level in part 3.

The answer to ethically sound food production...

Today most farms run on linear systems of a single species. This causes
the economics to maximise the yields of a single crop or animal. An
"amazing pathology" establishes due to overstocking of one species,
opening the doors wide for an increase of species specific pathogens.On
the other hand, mixed-speciated farms, where inspiration is taken from nature,
allowing a mix of species to co-exist, causes "confused pathogens".
There is so much going on that the pathogens have trouble finding their
preferred host. On Polyface Farms, cows are cell grazed by keeping them in
small paddocks and moving them to a new area of grass each day. Nature's
"biological sanitisers", chickens, follow, scratching over the cow
manure and adding their own manure.

Machinery versus the pig. Salatin
doesn't use a petroleum driven tractor to turn his compost. He adds corn cobs to
the piles to ferment. Then he lets in his willing work force, pigs. "We'll
work for corn". They turn the compost over whilst going on a treasure hunt
for the buried corn, "pig aeration". Salatin asks "What about
retirement? We eat them!". "The animals do the work and suddenly it
completely revolutionises the way the work gets done on the farm."

What you can do: Support mixed-speciated food production via:

Join your
local permaculture group, where you can learn how to use this successful
mixed approach to food production in your backyard.

Employ poultry
in your backyard to scratch over spent vegetable beds, and control weeds
and pests. To learn more read Mandala Chook Clock Garden.

Ask your local
farmers how they produce your food, ask them if they practice a mixed
system of production.